Computer animation has many applications, particularly for content and games accessed through the Internet. Computer gaming benefits from the increased realism of computer animation; however, even though available bandwidth for the average user is increasing, such animation places a heavy burden on most users' Internet connections and processors. Such animation is particularly problematic with regard to anthropomorphic characters, which require dynamic, realistic movements. Furthermore, there is frequently a desire for dynamic customization, such as for interactive animation, including computer games for example. Certain types of character animation also feature motion capture animation, in which the physical movements are captured and then used as the basis for rendering, which is again a highly computationally intensive process.
Computer animation is further challenged by the relatively low computational power of widely available rendering engines. For example, many websites rely on such rendering engines as Flash, which have very limited three dimensional rendering capabilities. Mobile devices are also highly limited. Therefore, various solutions have been proposed to render high fidelity characters on devices and/or software interfaces/engines with limited three dimensional rendering capability.
One current solution involves the use of sprite sheets, which are typically prerendered characters which can be used for more efficiently rendering the characters while also using lower computer bandwidth for transmitting the information needed to display the animation on a user's computer. However, even sprite sheets can place a huge burden on overall bandwidth requirements for download. Therefore, current animation solutions involving sprite sheets often sacrifice realism, the ability to customize characters, smooth movements and the like to avoid this burden.
Alternative solutions involve three dimensional animation approximations or “hacks”, severely reducing visual appeal and realism of the resultant animation. Odd artifacts also appear with such “hacks”, further reducing the quality of the animated characters. One example of such a “hack” is rendering three dimensional geometry at extremely low polygon counts or density, which significantly reduces the visual fidelity of the resultant character.
These problems are exacerbated by the recent desirability of viewing animation and playing games on mobile telephones and other mobile devices, which have even greater bandwidth and performance limitations.
Thus, currently available animation solutions must either sacrifice quality, visual appeal and realism of the resultant animated characters, or alternatively consume excessive amounts of bandwidth.